Playing through normal on insane

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Well I just picked IWD 2 back off the shelf after a long period in between beating it and I decided that this time I'd like to both go through the game on insane and play hof mode. I'd like to do this with a four player party. I figure so far that I'll have a Drow Sorc of some sort thrown in there, as well as some kind of multi-class dg healer/buffer, but the main thing I was wondering for those who have done normal mode on insane: Is a high ac tank nessecary? I was banging around in the prologue with a random party to see what monsters were like on insane and it appears that you will get hit and often with a normal kind of character. With that in mind would some kind of deep gnome decoy/tank be my best bet for insane and then hof mode? It's obvious I can't get by with a normal kind of tank, even a heavily hped one would probably get crushed with monsters doing double(?) damage as well as hitting extremely often.

So basically, any tips/helpful info about insane would be appreciated if anybody has done this approach yet so I have an idea of what to expect and maybe what type of chars to make.

 

Yes, a high AC tank will be important and is the only sort worth having by the time you get to to HoF when tanks are a wee bit useless and magic becomes the only way to go.

 

I'm trying the JUPP arcane party at the moment on insane and am having trouble, to say the least. I don't seem to have enough firepower to get through these early fights and the decoy doesn't yet have his monk level and so he's getting hit by everything. I've done every little sidequest I could in the hopes that I'd be level three before the goblin prologue fight, but alas I could not manage it. What I'm faced with now is the seemingly insurmountable task of defeating a horde of goblins who have little trouble hitting me with very little firepower to counteract them.

I'm at:

DG Illusionist(1)/rogue(1) and
DG Cleric(1)/Druid(1) right now as per the arcane party. I get the feeling that getting that crucial monk level which comes next for my dg might be key in my parties ability to survive, but right now at least I don't see how I can possibly manage this fight which would, ironically enough, give me the xp I need to hit 3rd level.

What I've been trying to do is have my c/d run around in circles while my archer peppers them with arrows and I managed the first part by doing that and constantly running back into the house to ask for healing. I guess I'll keep trying it that way, but I hope things get easier soon. I suppose they can't get any harder.

 

They do. For some reason my game seems to shift into insane mode at some point in the goblin warrens. I kept getting slaughtered to a man in the first fight on the second level of the warrens. No matter what I tried I could not survive. That was also with the JUPP arcane party. It would take a much better player than I am to take the JUPP arcane through normal mode at insane setting.

 

Well I'm getting better now theres no doubt about that. A key spell to my recent success has been entangle. If you have archers having a druid along who can cast this can do wonders. My party cannot under any circumstances tank the orcs at the ford right now, so what I do is entangle them with repeated castings of it and slaughther them one by one with the decoy and rapid shot. It's proved a most effective technique thus far. If I am not mistaken entangle lowers dex dramatically as well, which gets rid of the ridiculously high bab's the archers on insane seem to boast. This means that even if they are intangled and still firing, they have much less of a chance of hitting the decoy than previously. I only wish I'd thought of it for the prologue with the goblins, though I did manage to get through that with hit-and-run and repeated visits to the healer.


I just got his monk level and expertise, but for some reason expertise won't work?? The tab for it is there, but when I click on it there are no options for -1, 2, 3, and so forth like there are for my other characters power attack. Is there something I'm missing about the feat?

 

The number you select for expertise is limited to a maximum of your base attack bonus - which means it will be stuck at one until your base attack bonus reaches two at which point you will be able to set it at one or two.

 

JSBB is correct. And if you are using the JUPP arcane party, your decoy will have a BAB of zero until character level 5! Monk 1, Rogue 1, Cleric 1, and Illusionist 1 all have BABs of zero. You will finally get a +1 BAB when you go to Illusionist 2. If you have not yet gotten to 5th level, then you have no BAB to expend on Expertise.

The JUPP arcane is incredibly powerful in the mid to late game and in HOF. However, as you have noticed, it really struggles in the early game. While I know the JUPP arcane is supposed to concentrate on blasting, I am becoming more and more convinced that the fourth character needs to have some early melee power to carry this party through till the spell power can take over. I am just still not sure how best to structure that melee helper. Any ideas? My current thinking is the DG Rogue 3 / Paladin 3 / Fighter 4 / Illusionist 20 from the JUPP melee party. Early fighting prowress, but fairly good blasting power later on.

 

Hi people. I spearheaded the initial idea of UPP some years ago, then I stopped playing IWD2. I decided to play it recently and just finished normal mode with UPP.

UPP is composed of 6 characters:
- Dwarf Fighter 4 / Barbarian X
- Dwarf Battleguard of Tempus X
- Human Morninglord of Lathander X / Paladin 1
- Tiefling/Drow Rogue 1 / Conjurer X
- Human Sorcerer
- Aasimar Sorcerer

I am currently playing HoF, chapter 1. My party is level 20-21 right now, with 1 level in the bag.

Strategies: everyone with Improved Invisibility, Conjurer casts Malison, Sorcerers (both) cast Wail of the Banshee/Disintegrate/Finger of Death; bruisers bash remaining oposition.

It's been nice till now, but I must say that it scares me how enemies hit hard in HoF. Anyway, with 2 clerics, I got many Mass Heals/Heals.

I will look for a thread on HoF, haven't seen one on the first page here.

Cheers from Brazil.

 

High Cleric,

The UPP is a fine party for normal mode. The reason Jukka created the JUPP, I believe, is that the UPP will struggle greatly in HOF unless it relies excessively on summons, especially Animate Dead. The reason is, as you have noticed, the monsters in HOF have HUGE BAB and hit HARD. Jukka set forth to create a party which could generate an AC high enough to survive combat in HOF without constant use of Resurrection and Heal.

Jukka, along with many others over the years, studied HOF and deduced the maximum BAB for most monsters was +52, thus requiring an AC of 72 to only be hit on a natural 20 (which hits all the time regardless of AC). Using this information, Jukka crafted two parties, one specializing in melee and one in blasting with spells, where at least one of the characters could reach an AC of 72.

My JUPP Arcane party in HOF won most fights without even taking any hits. The AC on the decoy was so great that he could only be hit on a natural 20, and all the monsters concentrated on him while the remaining party members wiped them out with spells.

I would highly recommend that you take a look at the JUPP. It is so superior to the old UPP that you never hear anyone talk about the UPP anymore, only the JUPP.


With regard to my question about an appropriate melee character, I was playing around and noticed that if one took the main tank from the melee party and reconfigured his stats to allow him to take Expertise, then he could still reach AC 72 even with the second best AC equipment (the best going to the decoy). So I am currently running a new JUPP Arcane party where the Cleric/Druid tank is replaced by a DG Rogue 1 / Monk 1 / Illusionist 4 (for Mirror Image & Shield) / Dreadmaster 24. To get the Druid levels I will have to create the fourth character as a Druid.

Any ideas on the best way to run that fourth character? I was thinking either a Drow or Deep Gnome Druid 13 / Transmuter or Illusionist 17 or a Female Drow Druid 20 / Dreadmaster 10. The former would provide more arcane blasting power and would provide a good utility infielder, but would have poor physical stats because of needing both INT and WIS. The latter would have great physical stats and could be used to hurl Big Death, but would only add some more divine blasting, not arcane blasting. I will not be adding the fourth character for awhile, so have some time to think it over. Any suggestions? The only requirement is that the character must have at least 12 Druid levels.

[ August 17, 2005, 13:36: Message edited by: Khemsa ]

 

If there is one good thing that has come from the JUPP, it is the concept of the high AC shield. Having someone with around 45-50 AC with items only is very easy by the time you finish a game in normal mode. And then you never really have to worry about the monsters being able to get close to you or managing to get past the AC to acually register a hit. Except for a few named monsters, there should not be any problem in the first two chapters of HoF.

 

Hi, Khemsa.

Yeah, I read JUPP Faq, it really looks ULTIMATE, as the name implies. Now I see that UPP was a bad name for what we tried to create: we merely wanted a 6-people group that did NOT rely upon muling etcetera to level up, nor "ridiculous", unbelievable multiclassing. I can see tha JUPP is probably far superior and truly "ultimate", but I still prefer to have a feeling of "truth" and "viability" to my group. Even if UPP used min/maxing stats :-P

I am currently squatting to get to level 30 on Fomorians, beginning of chapter 2. I hope it's possible to finish HoF with UPP - I admit I did not do it years ago cause I suddenly got busy at work/school and had to stop.

Anyway, FUN is king I hope I can get some fun in HoF with UPP and finish it!

 

High Cleric,

Go for it. Good luck and let us know how it works out. Every report I have ever read about a non-JUPP party making it through HOF involves HEAVY use of summons, especially Animate Dead. Just personally speaking, I would rather have my own characters on the front lines rather than some summoned monster. But that's just my own personal taste. The main reason I like the JUPP is that it allows me to do just that.

The new JUPP Arcane party does not involve what I would call excessive multiclassing: a pure Sorcerer, a Cleric/Druid with the levels evenly split, and an Illusionist with one level of Monk, Rogue and Cleric. The latter does involve more multiclassing than the UPP (however, since one takes all the other classes before advancing as an Illusionist, there is no worrying about what class to take at level-up once you hit 5th level), but the other two characters do not involve excessive multiclassing.